Real Card or Hollywood Prop?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

The book came out before the movie and the screenplay was written by the same guy who wrote the book...I'm guessing that it says "Sweet Caporals" in the book...The writer probably remembered cards from his youth, but either forgot or was unaware that Sweet Caporal no longer produced cards when Ruth was a rookie. The propmaster for the movie probably just grabbed whatever baseball cards he could find, but he had to find one of Babe Ruth as a rookie as this scene takes place in 1915 because the kid that doesn't want Gehrig to play ball with them has no interest in the Ruth card because in his words Ruth is "just a rookie". The great part about that scene is that when Gehrig "hits" the baseball you can clearly see the ball comes from the left and behind the catcher. It's so obvious that it's almost embarrassing.